Over the Garden Wall

Readers: Over the Garden Wall is a "prequel" of sorts to my earlier three-part series Ride on a Unicorn, so if you haven't already, please read that first. Thanks!

WF1

"Considering we're up against cold-blooded killers, multiple organized crime syndicates and a thoroughly corrupt police force, I guess a good night's sleep would have been the right move," Mike said as he lifted his head from his lover's pussy.

Sharine growled in disapproval and forcibly returned his weary mouth to the important task at hand. "It relieves the tension, don't you know? Back to work, love slave."

Mike stuck his tongue out in defiance and Sharine appreciated the gesture with a chuckling moan. But he was right though, she thought as she writhed in pleasure, as a background dialogue spooled through her mind plotting their next moves.

They needed to know when the cartel would move the coke. Could they catch them in the act? And who would believe them? How could they make them pay for what they did to her beloved brother and the innocent tourists in his care?

But more pressingly: When was that goon coming through the door?

Even in the throes of passion, Sharine was able to detect his movements outside, and saw his reflection in the window next to Mike's front door. She waited a moment to satisfy herself that he was apparently alone.

Now she pulled Mike's moist face to hers and kissed him deeply, then put her lips to his ear. She delivered a short but urgent message. Mike pulled back wide-eyed. "Guess I'll take a shower!" he declared before bounding off the bed through the kitchen and into the bathroom. Then the sound of jetting water.

Sharine's eyes turned to the door. Three seconds passed. She made a loud yawning noise. The door opened, a gun barrel proceeded him.

She pretended to be shocked as Carlos entered the cottage, and he put an index finger to his lips to signal that she shouldn't alert her lover to his presence. She shook her head vigorously, pulling the sheets up and pretending to cower in fear. Carlos broke into a broad smile, revealing years of failed dental work.

"Please don't kill me!" she whimpered, to Carlos' delight. "You can have anything you want."

Sharine lowered the sheets, revealing her state-of-the-art software. Carlos' eyes widened and he nearly choked on the toothpick in his mouth. She smiled and pushed her breasts together, so Carlos could better imagine his cock sliding between them.

She nodded at the shower. "I don't care what you do to him, he means nothing to me," she said. "You could tie me up. I like that. Siempre he preferido a los amantes latinos."

Of course she preferred Latin lovers -- and she had come to the right place. He'd had hundreds of women and mostly no complaints. Carlos had no intention of letting the girl go. But where was the harm in having a little fun before he put a bullet in that pretty head of hers? It had been a fucked-up week and he deserved a break.

"Don't move," he said with menace. "If you run, I shoot you now. I visit your boyfriend first, and then you and I play. Yes?"

He backed toward the bathroom, turning his head back and forth between Sharine and the open door emitting steam. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw an object swinging toward his head and he quickly ducked out of the way. Mike had been hiding in a corner beside the fridge on the way to the bathroom and he stumbled and fell when he failed to hit his target.

Carlos scrambled back to his feet and trained his gun on the fallen man. "Muere, cabrón!" he hollered.

"Hey lover, I thought we were going to fuck!"

He turned quickly and saw Sharine squared in shooting position. There was only time for a short sorrowful look at her magnificent ebony tetas before she fired. And for the third time that sorry week, Carlos would require the services of St. Basil's finest, and only, veterinarian.

Standing over the thrice-wounded bruiser, Sharine glared at Mike who was still grasping his improvised weapon.

"A rolling pin -- really? That's the best you could do? What is this -- a sitcom?"

"I'm OK, I'm uninjured, thanks for your concern!"

"What the hell, Mike," she muttered as she bent down to assure herself she hadn't terminated Carlos before he could prove useful. She got lucky -- it was a through-and-through that missed vital organs.

"If I'd known there would be gunplay, I'd have put a rifle in the broom closet," Mike griped. "Hey, where did you hide the piece?"

Sharine winked at him before returning to the bedroom to grab some clothes. "Now you know why I wasn't up for anal."

When Carlos came to, he was face down on the rear deck of Poppy's fishing boat, spitting salty entrails out of his mouth as his head cleared. He could tell his wrists were zip-tied behind his back and his legs were wrapped in an anchor chain. He looked about and felt the roll of the ocean and knew they were out at sea. He then cried out and writhed in terror as he figured out what they were going to do to him.

"Sharine, he's awake!" Poppy yelled and in a moment the black woman crouched down to address her prisoner. Sadly, she was fully clothed and her interest in bondage seemed to have taken a sinister turn since the last time Carlos spoke to her.

"Fuck you!" he snarled, with what little courage he had left on display. He tried to spit at her but fear had turned his mouth dry as a bone. Another lame gesture. "I tell you nothing."

Sharine grabbed him by his oily hair and pulled his face up. "Oh, I think you're going to sing like a bird. Isn't he Poppy?"

Her grandfather chuckled as he grabbed a pail of bloody chopped fish and dumped it off the back of the boat. Carlos turned and saw the old man and a few of his buddies cheerfully passing loaded buckets to one another. He knew what they were up to.

"You think that scares me?"

Sharine shrugged. "It probably should. Getting eaten alive by a shark is pretty awful. But you can trust us to keep you alive -- and in awful torment -- til the last drop of blood drains from your body into the sea."

"You kill me anyway."

Sharine produced her gun and put it to his temple. "This way is a whole lot faster."

Carlos forced a grin. "I know who you are. British Secret Service. You cannot do this to me. I have rights."

Sharine frowned. "You hear that Mike? Our man Carlos here has rights."

Mike leaned over. "It would appear he's exercising his right to remain silent."

"Well then," Sharine said, getting to her feet. "It's time for a demonstration."

Sharine nodded at Poppy and in an instant the crane hauled the howling heavy from the deck into the air, swung him over the side of the boat and then proceeded to dangle him over the freshly chummed waters. Upside down Carlos could see a frenzied school of sharks beginning to circle the boat. The line suddenly slacked and his head plunged under the water. He saw two sharks home in on his face. Fortunately for him, Poppy saw them first and Carlos was suddenly jerked back out of the water. He screamed in horror.

"I could do this all day, Carlos!" Sharine called.

"Por favor, no! No! Te diré lo que quieres saber!"

"Gee, my Spanish is pretty rough. Is he asking us to dunk him again?"

"I tell you what you want to know -- please!"

Sharine waved at Poppy to swing Carlos back over the deck until he was upside-down face to face with her. She stepped up.

"Hey this is like that scene in Spiderman where he kisses Mary Jane in the rain!" Mike said.

"Carlos had his chance for a smooch this morning," Sharine said acidly. "Now I want to know who's on the yacht and when you're moving that shipment."

Carlos spilled his guts, sobbing and dripping. Time was of the essence -- the loaded sub would depart the underwater station that evening to begin its northward journey while Angel and Ginny would set sail to points unknown. He found his humor in pointing out there wasn't a damned thing they could do about it -- the Baz government, the judges and police were in the cartel's pocket. And he had no idea where the submarine was bound -- they'd get instructions off Florida where to dock. It could be anywhere along the Sunshine State's 1,300 miles of coastline.

Sharine pondered this information while leaving Carlos hanging by his ankles. She turned to Mike. "He's right about the fact there's no cavalry to call. We're on our own here."

"The only piece of good news I heard is there's only four members of the crew plus the boss' girlfriend."

Sharine nudged Poppy away from the winch control. "You mean three."

She fired up the engine and swung Carlos back over the water. "I told you everything!" he wailed.

"This is for Finbar!" Sharine pushed a button on the console releasing the hook. Carlos screamed as he disappeared into the sea and soon plunged into the inky depths where he appropriately became a meal for bottom feeders. "It should have been Enrique!" was his final thought.

Mike watched as Carlos disappeared from view. "Jesus Sharine, remind me to never piss in your corn flakes."

Poppy leaned over the side and spat in Carlos' wake. "Good riddance."

Sharine stood next to Mike and scanned the distant horizon toward town. "I've got to get on that yacht and you better get your tools." She touched his hand on the rail. "We're not finished yet."

When Carlos didn't return to the yacht at the appointed time, Angel feared the worst. Already suffering from the low quality of her crew, now the issue was quantity. The evening sun bled gold and crimson over the horizon, casting sharp glimmers across the deck of Mi Virginia.

It was anchored at the same marker buoy Mike and Finbar fatefully chose just days before in Half Moon Bay, a decision that ended in an unspeakable death toll while changing the lives of many more forever. The police were told to mind approaches to the bay from the north and south, leaving Angel and her crew to their business.

That business now involved the boss pitching in with the heavy lifting. Angel stood by the rail, her sharp eyes on the glassy water, her jaw tight with restrained fury. She was not supposed to be doing this herself. Carlos had to be dead, which ordinarily would be great news, but not tonight. She had no doubt Sharine Browne has something to do with it, and God knew what that idiot told her. They had to move -- now.

Angel inhaled deeply, forcing calm. She tugged the wetsuit over her lithe frame, the snug neoprene clinging to her compact, muscular body. She cinched the zipper up without hesitation. She quickly checked her dive gear as Miquel and Enrique prepared theirs on the back deck.

Behind her, Ginny's soft voice broke the silence. Angel turned and saw her lover in her favorite bikini, the one she bought her in Cartagena, the one she couldn't wait to remove with her teeth the first time Ginny wore it in that cabana.

"You don't have to do this, Angel."

Angel shook her head as she put the regulator in her mouth to test airflow. "I have to. It's a three-diver job. Without Carlos... it's up to me."

"It's too risky, mi amor," Ginny countered, stepping closer. Her hands, warm and trembling, rested on Angel's chest. "What if something else goes wrong -- will I ever see you again?"

Angel's jaw tightened. "With these idiotas, something else could go wrong. That is why I have to go." She cupped Ginny's face, her calloused thumb brushing her cheek. "You will see me again," she murmured. "I swear it."

Ginny's lips parted, but no words came. Instead, she pulled Angel into a kiss -- deep, desperate, and fierce. It was a clash of love and fear, their bodies pressed together as if holding on could stop the tide of fate pulling Angel away.

When they finally broke apart, Angel rested her forehead against Ginny's.

"Remember what we talked about. You'll sail the yacht to safety, understand? Go north. I'll meet you in Miami. We'll have mojitos on the beach. You'll wear this bikini." Her hands mischievously traced the undersides of the bra cups.

Ginny let out a shaky laugh, though her eyes glistened with unshed tears. "You better not keep me waiting, Angel Guerra. Mojitos won't taste the same without you."

Angel gave her a parting kiss and then slung her tank over her shoulders. She climbed down the stairs into the dive platform at the back of the boat where her suited-up crew waited. She took one last look at Ginny -- radiant in the fading light -- and gave a nod. She barked an instruction and the three divers stepped off the edge of the yacht and into the water, the waves swallowing them whole as the sun slipped beneath the horizon.

Sharine and Mike were already below. Sharine was hiding behind a large coral head well away from the entrance, watching the yacht as the sun set and the water surrounding her grew dim.

Mike managed to scrounge a pair of closed-circuit scuba rebreather units used by marine biologists as well as military divers to remain quiet and bubble-free. That, plus the growing darkness, made her invisible to Angel and her crew, now finning out to the wall, and then descending to the way station.

Sharine's heart was thumping, fearful that Mike's end of the operation wasn't going as well as hoped. By now, according to plan, he'd be done and heading back to the beach. Her end of the bargain was simple -- wait for the three divers to leave the yacht so she could sneak aboard and recover any incriminating evidence she could find after making short work of Angel's girlfriend.

Sharine surveilled the yacht that afternoon while it was still anchored in the town harbor and was relieved to see Angel hadn't bolstered her remaining crew. She also sized up the blonde. Middle-aged, soft, probably a great fuck but no threat. She correctly assumed she'd be left to mind the fort -- with the cops sealing off surface access to the bay, an easy job.

Mike's gig had a higher degree of difficulty. He had two jobs, actully: crack open the panel to gain access to the tunnel and once inside, scuttle the sub. She watched as he took copious notes that afternoon in the library when she returned from her recon mission observing the yacht. He seemed confident he could pull it off, but she reminded him he was the guy who brought a rolling pin to a gunfight. He couldn't blame her for a little skepticism.

Although she had only known Mike for three days, she had begun to fall for him, something she promised herself she would never do in the field. For her, fucking was a sport, a way to burn excess energy, to gain confidences. One of her lovers once cracked that she fucked with the selfishness and ruthlessness of a man and she thanked him for the compliment.

It started that way with Mike after the funeral, but there was something about him -- his vulnerability, his humor and his willingness to follow her lead. He parked the chauvinistic bullshit, if he had any in him at all.

It also didn't hurt that his genius for complex machinery extended to her vajay. He was a keeper, for sure -- if either or both of them weren't killed tonight.

As Angel and her crew vanished from sight, Sharine gingerly rose off the bottom and began her diagonal assent to the yacht, mindful that was the only time her unit emitted any bubbles. As she neared the boat, she took a final hit off her reg and doffed the rebreather which sank to the bottom, completing her approach holding her breath.

Meanwhile, there was good news and bad from the tunnel. The good was that Mike cracked the panel easily and gained entry to the tunnel. The bad was that the sub he found inside wasn't anything like the craft he'd studied in the library that afternoon.

He had to work quickly and decided the best bet was to try to get inside and work his mischief on the controls. The airlock was a bitch but once inside he found the sub unbelievably cramped with product and while he worked feverishly in the cockpit it reminded him of the time he and his pal Dave smuggled four women into a drive-in theatre in a beat-up VW Beetle.

Mike smiled as he got the hang of the toggle switches and buttons on the console in front of him, even as his heart thumped out of his chest in fear that he'd be caught before he properly sabotaged the sub. He wondered what Sharine might be able to recover topside and hoped Angel had left no nasty surprises behind. He couldn't bear the thought of anything bad happening to her.

He knew he had no hope with Sharine -- realistically the chances for a Canadian grease monkey/divemaster with a hot woman like her were double-O. Still, they had that moment the night before, when all her defences, even that clipped upper-crust accent, fell away and he was there to catch her. The first night they properly fucked. Last night they made love. Or maybe he just kidding himself.

It was time to go. He'd left the rebreather outside and when he cleared the airlock his heart turned over -- he wasn't alone. Beams of light reflected off his mask as a pair of divers entered the tunnel.

Busted.

Sharine quietly hoisted herself up on the dive platform and lifted her head to hunt for Angel's girlfriend. There was no one in evidence so she tiptoed along the rail, scanning cabins as she passed quickly down the length of the craft. She furtively entered the bridge and began riffling through documents situated next to a computer monitor including maps and photos, all while looking about for the lone hand on board.

Then the monitor screen next to her exploded and Sharine hit the deck. She found the blonde. Luckily she was a lousy shot.

Ginny fired a few more rounds as Sharine quickly crawled to an exit and scrambled up a ladder to the upper sun deck. She could hear the blonde reloading and screaming demands that she get the fuck off her boat.

Sharine drew her knife and hid behind a deck couch, hoping the woman would get the courage to follow her upstairs. In desperation Ginny started firing wildly through the ceiling and again Sharine felt fortunate the woman didn't seem to know what she was doing with the firearm. Then she heard the familiar sound of a gun jamming.

Sharine seized her chance. Grabbing a ladder railing, she swiftly swung back down to the bridge and struck the blonde from behind, the fouled rifle flying from her hands. Before the dazed woman could recover it, Sharine nailed her with a right cross. Ginny went down, and stayed down. Sharine grabbed the rifle and pitched it over the side.

Her heart racing, Sharine shoved as much evidence as she could gather into a waterproof bag and raced to the dive platform, hoping to rendezvous with Mike at the pre-arranged spot on the beach. She pulled the strap around her shoulders, pulled down her mask, and took several deep breaths before her stride back into the water.

That's when Angel surfaced and she fired a spear at the interloper. Sharine yelped as the blade sliced her left arm and she fell back into the boat. She desperately tried to crawl away on her hands and knees but could hear the cursing Colombian climbing up on the platform.

Angel ditched her tank and pulled her knife. She thanked God she saw the rifle sinking to the seafloor under the yacht before she could enter the tunnel with the team. There would be hell to pay if anything happened to her Ginny.

Mike didn't have time to grab his rebreather and quickly finned away from the cartel divers deeper into the tunnel. He had no idea where he was going but he remembered the scene in Thunderball where James Bond escaped SPECTRE divers by doing just that.

Unfortunately, in the real world, the cramped space was barely larger than a two-car garage and he quickly came to a dead end. But he did manage to kick up quite a bit of silt and bought himself a little time to figure out what to do.

Without an air supply, a little time was all he had while the cartel divers had all the time in the world to wait him out. But they could also see he'd messed with the sub so he was hoping they would devote a little attention to that pressing problem. He trained his torch on the ceiling and was relieved to find a couple of air pockets filled with the exhaust from earlier visits, perhaps from the doomed divers from earlier that week. He shivered at the thought.